


Succession

by aishahiwatari



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Anal Sex, Bathing/Washing, Bathtub Sex, Biting, Bruises, Dirty Talk, First Kiss, Hair-pulling, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Medieval Medicine, Oral Sex, Painplay, Pillow Talk, Possessive Sex, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21991792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishahiwatari/pseuds/aishahiwatari
Summary: Prince James Kirk doesn't want the responsibility of being Royal. He'd rather head into town and find out who's willing to treat him as something else for the night.Doctor Leonard McCoy doesn't keep up with local politics, and he has no idea which member of the nobility has stumbled through his door looking as though he's just been in a tavern brawl.Fills the Royal AU square of my Leonard McCoy Bingo Card.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 25
Kudos: 270
Collections: Leonard McCoy Bingo





	Succession

**Author's Note:**

> There's no choking or restriction of breathing in this, but Leonard does have a tendency to wrap a hand around Jim's throat while they're having sex.

Leonard hates politics. He keeps as far away from it all as is humanly possible, no mean feat since he’s in contact with his patients throughout the day, and no matter how injured they are, or how sick, they always try to talk. Every time, he shuts them down, and his reputation spreads a little further, the reach of rumours regarding his healing hands by far exceeding those of his sharp tongue.

It’s very inconvenient. But at least the work keeps him busy.

And it means that even when he’s finished for the night, and he’s washing his hands of the blood from his last surgery -a successful amputation apparently akin to some kind of miracle in this isolated, walled city- he has no idea which one of the many, ridiculous nobles it is who’s stumbled through his door.

Because they clearly are noble, even though they’ve tried to dress down and done a relatively convincing job of it. There’s something in the way he carries himself, in the smoothness of his skin and the brightness of his eyes behind the bruising. His clothes are simply styled but they’re also expertly tailored, a perfect fit for the trim, lean body they adorn, and his coin purse hangs heavy beneath his belt.

Leonard sighs, and gestures him closer to the hanging lamp, asking even though he knows the answer will be a lie, “How much have you had to drink tonight?”

“Lost count,” comes the somewhat hoarse reply. The young man’s face is dirty but his lips are soft but for where they’ve split, and there’s blood on his knuckles and under his nails but his hands are otherwise clean. His eyes track Leonard’s experimental movements well despite the drink and the injuries that suggest he’s sustained a number of blows to the head.

Technically his answer’s not a lie. Leonard can always appreciate a little honesty, even if it’s spoken with a challenge. “Take off your shirt.”

That earns him an appreciative leer, one he ignores. He’s too damn tired for this, and he gathers up unguent for bruises, alcohol for cuts, lets his gaze trail only professionally over a sculpted chest, assessing for damage. When he touches, it’s only to put pressure on a mark on the man’s side, dark enough to suggest a cracked rib beneath, and he earns a disgruntled hiss for his efforts, the man twisting in an attempt to face him, maybe push him away.

Leonard steps neatly back instead. “You’ll want to ice that one. The bone is bruised.”

“What makes you think I can afford that?”

With unguent already on his fingers, Leonard steps back in to meet that challenge to smear vinegary paste on the man’s bruised cheek, to meet the narrowed gaze, unblinking. With his other hand, sure and steady, he slips the coin purse from that belt and pushes it against the man’s chest so he’s forced to catch the heavy, jangling leather or let it drop as Leonard withdraws again.

He’s pretending not to look when he sees a flash of indignation, then resigned acceptance before finally, ill-advised interest.

Leonard rolls his eyes, has a clean, alcohol-soaked rag in hand when he turns back. He wipes at he deep, still-oozing cut on the man’s lip probably harder than necessary, not the best idea considering all he knows about someone who has plenty of money with which to entertain himself but would rather get in tavern fights and then stumble drunk around town with a heavy coin purse. He expects another hiss, maybe a flinch but what he actually earns is a whimper and the darkening of intent eyes.

That shouldn't make his own interest peak, but he's only human and sometimes he wants what he shouldn't.

"You're new in town, right?" the man asks, with a lick of his lips and a grimace at the taste.

"Been here a couple weeks." Usually Leonard has people do this themselves, but applying salve to that split lip, cleaning the cut above a brow fulfils some of his urge to touch, and despite the pain -or maybe because of it, and something deep inside of him shivers to life at the thought- his attention is clearly welcomed.

"Puri left, right?"

"Doctor Puri died," Leonard informs the poor, sheltered noble, who to his credit at least recovers quickly. "Three months ago."

"What happened?"

"Sepsis. He was a good man. Not a particularly good doctor."

"Some people prefer not to speak ill of the dead."

"And some prefer the truth." Leonard runs fingers through soft blond hair, checking for contusions, for any swelling. He feels the stickiness of blood, but there's nothing to suggest it belongs to the man who's cautiously touching Leonard's waist, who's leaning in to every touch, who tilts his head and meets Leonard's mouth with his own and spills the taste of alcohol and copper onto his tongue.

"We shouldn't," Leonard whispers, and the man laughs and turns their kiss enthusiastically open-mouthed. He moans when Leonard presses fingers into mapped bruises to urge him closer, to feel the press of that bare chest, the warmth of another body through the fabric of his white tunic. "I don't even know your name."

"Call me Jim."

That may or may not be this stunning man's name. If it is, it's so common as to be practically meaningless, what with the local trend to name first born boys after Prince James. Leonard is beginning to struggle to care, anyway. He travelled a long way to get to this city. He hasn't touched anyone in anything other than a professional sense since before he left his own city. Nobody has touched him at all. This is a bad idea, but he's done worse for less reward.

"Take me to bed?" Jim asks.

Leonard could deny him. He doesn't.

Jim acts soft and sweet and submissive, and he positively melts when Leonard hurts him, when he bites at his collarbone, presses his fingers into tender bruises, both new and faded. He is the perfect outlet for every single one of Leonard's frustrations, and he is far too trusting.

Leonard makes every single facet of that trust worth his while, slowly and steadily takes him apart, all the while pressing soft kisses to flushed, hot skin, caressing with his hands, lathing with his tongue.

He works Jim open with the utmost care, despite his enthusiasm, his relentless pursuit of more, gets him hot and wet and slick inside before he slides right in to the sound of a tremulous, breathy moan that nearly guts him.

"You're so goddamn beautiful," Leonard's always been violently romantic and in the heat of the moment he can't always control what slips out. It's true, with the arch of Jim's spine, the taut musculature of his shoulders, the bruises and bites patterned across his neck, and he only becomes more so when that arch deepens, those shoulders twist and bright blue eyes regard Leonard with dazed curiosity. Like Leonard's maybe made some kind of mistake, or he could be speaking to somebody else.

So Leonard pulls out, pushes him onto his back and takes him again. The new angle or the vulnerability or some kind of pleasurable pain makes Jim whine and squeeze his eyes shut, but there's a flush creeping down his neck from his cheeks. His lips are bitten raw, parted around soft, breathless sounds.

"Beautiful," Leonard repeats, and tears leak from behind closed eyelids and Jim shakes his head even as his cock lurches and drools, as he ripples around Leonard's in time with the clenching of his stomach muscles. Leonard rocks into him, aiming for the spot that makes Jim yelp the first time he hits it and then keen as Leonard refuses to let up, digs his fingers hard into Jim's thighs to keep him from squirming. It makes him mewl pitifully and open dark, wet eyes to plead for more.

"Love the sounds you make," Leonard says, and then he knows Jim is holding them back so it's all the more satisfying when the beginnings of a sustained rhythm make him shudder and groan. 

Experimentally, Leonard releases his thigh to wrap a hand around Jim's throat and squeeze, just enough that Jim can't possibly ignore it. There's still no resistance at all, just unquestioning submission and obedience, like Jim's just been waiting all his life for someone to fuck him hard and tell him how good he looks taking it. It's unrehearsed, beautifully sincere, and it does something to Leonard's heart that he hasn't felt in a long time.

"It's like someone made you just for me," Leonard doesn't have a chance to regret saying, dangerously sentimental as it is, but Jim's eyes snap wide open but utterly unseeing as he comes, sharp and intense, his blood storming through his veins beneath Leonard's hands, his breathing stuttering and ragged. Apart from that, he's silent until Leonard's building rhythm, the chasing of his own release makes him whine with the overstimulation.

Leonard's so damn close and the way Jim relaxes into the edge of pain pushes him over that edge, has him burying deep and snarling his ownership, however temporary. Jim's lashes flutter and he smiles, rolling his hips upwards into the sensation of Leonard filling him.

"So good for me," escapes before Leonard can stop himself, but Jim looks at him like he can't believe how lucky he is, and Leonard kisses him, savours the lax and lazy enthusiasm of Jim's response, the uncoordinated tangle of Jim's arms around his neck, refusing to let him go. There's another of those breathy little whines as Leonard's cock slips free.

He stays for far longer than Leonard had been expecting, revelling in the afterglow they've cultivated, exchanging kisses and murmured, low conversation. Jim's body is warm and relaxed but his eyes are bright and he has a wonderful small, sincere laugh that sneaks out as Leonard tells stories of former disastrous patients, none of whom, he states with the utmost sincerity, were anything like as captivating as Jim. 

"You don't make a habit of this, then?" Jim asks, with a coy bite of his bottom lip.

"I don't normally fall into bed with the many diseased and gangrenous souls who stumble through my door, no."

There's that laugh again. Leonard wants to bottle the sound and keep it, feels just as unwilling to let their moment slip away as Jim seems to be. He knows, somehow, that Jim has no intention of coming back, that this is their only chance, that even in a small, walled city they may never cross paths ever again, with the marked difference in their chosen social circles.

"And I hope," Leonard goes on, gently, with what will maybe be his last ever look at stunning blue eyes, wide and open, fixed on his, "That you don't fall into bed with everyone you think wants to hurt you."

Because he wants this moment, but he wants to be able to sleep knowing Jim is safe even more. And this road he's on is as sure a path to destruction as any Leonard's ever seen.

At least Jim lifts his head for a final, soft kiss before he says, "Not everyone," and gets up to leave.

"I'll fix you up, you know," Leonard tells him, when he's dressed and has one hand on the door handle, and he pauses. "No matter what. I'm a doctor, not a damn judge."

Jim doesn't look back at him, but he sniffs and wipes his eyes as he goes, out into the night. 

-

Technically, Leonard is right. He doesn't see Jim again. He glances up with a surge of hope every time the door opens, which is frankly more aggravating than anything, since he logically knows it won't be Jim there. And he does it for two damn weeks, too many days of being entirely unable to keep his mind from drifting to beautiful eyes and soft lips and bruised-hot skin in those moments when his surgical tunnel-vision recedes.

He still heals and treats and saves lives. It's what he's always done, and he couldn't any more stop than he could sever his own limb. He alternates between sharp outbursts of temper and a kind of light-headed euphoria his patients and his assistant Christine find far more disconcerting than his usual gruff manner.

But then he crawls into bed, exhausted and half-asleep but aware enough to recognise the shadow that creeps into the darkness of his room and, rather than raising the alarm, reach for him.

Jim slides into his bed smelling of brandy but not blood, and his bottom lip is intact when Leonard lathes it with his tongue. There's no matting in his hair, and he submits to the touch and taste-based examination with a satisfied purr.

Leonard's memories don't do him justice, the vibrant reality of him lighting up Leonard's skin, suffusing him with energy and desire.

"You're not hurt?" he pants, just in case, because Jim must have all kinds of options and this poor, foreign doctor is just one of them, but Jim kisses him like he might drown if he doesn't, messy and desperate.

If this is a dream, Leonard never wants to wake up.

"'m not hurt," Jim breathes, hot and sweet, as he fumbles for a hold on Leonard's wrist, guides his hand down. "But I do have this- swelling that could use your care and attention."

Now if Leonard was dreaming, this is the point at which he'd wake himself up laughing. Jim is so hopelessly ridiculous, utterly unrealistic, so thoroughly beyond Leonard's reach that this thing between them should be impossible.

He's beginning to think Jim might be the impossible one. He mewls so sweetly when Leonard gets a hand past the damn ties of his pants and cradles the heated, waiting length of him, wet at the tip like there's a chance he might have been thinking about this, craving it as starkly as Leonard has.

Leonard just caresses him gently, watches his lashes flutter in the dim light of his hooded lamp, and marvels.

"How do you do that?" Jim asks him, breathlessly, still vague and unfocused, rocking his hips into Leonard's loose grip. "You feel so different to anybody else."

It still hurts, to have it confirmed that Jim has been seeking his pleasure elsewhere, but there's solace to be found in the fact that he has come back, and Leonard intends to reward him.

"I'm a doctor," he says. "Take off your shirt."

And Jim laughs, but he does obey, wrestling with more than just his shirt. "I don't like doctors."

"Nobody likes doctors. You only see them when you're sick or hurt and they always know better than you, even when they're wrong."

"See, that's weird, because that's what I like about you."

"Maybe your head injury was worse than I thought."

"Check again," Jim urges, tangling them together now they've both cast all barriers aside, and Leonard can’t think of a single reason not to thread his fingers through Jim's hair, press their bodies close and kiss him.

Jim responds enthusiastically until he doesn't, until Leonard clenches his fists and pulls his hair hard so his mouth falls open on a gasp and he sags bodily, panting.

Leonard bites Jim's bottom lips, makes him whine, and asks, "Did anyone hurt you?"

There's so much he wants to know.

He wants to know their names, what they did to earn Jim’s attention, where they touch him, so he can begin to overwrite those memories and claim back what was never his. But he limits himself to that one question, the most important, the one that determines whether Jim has been keeping himself safe.

It earns him a frustrated noise, deep in Jim’s throat. “No. Nobody would.”

“I will,” Leonard promises, with his nails scratching Jim’s scalp, his teeth nipping at a sharp jaw, his cock hard and aching against the hollow of Jim’s hip. “Kneel up,” he growls, and Jim does that and more with glassy, blown eyes, that telltale flush creeping down his heaving chest, his cock bouncing against his stomach as he rides Leonard’s, after being opened up so slowly and carefully he was practically begging by the time he sank down that first time with a blissful, tremulous moan.

He has scratch marks down his back, the imprints of Leonard’s bites on his collarbone and across his shoulders and bruises on his hips in the shape of Leonard’s fingerprints. By the time they’re finished, he has Leonard’s come leaking from him, his own spattered across his chest, and his lips are swollen with the force and frequency of their increasingly clumsy shared kisses.

Its warm in the bed, the two of them together, and Jim’s the one who has stories to tell this time, of a misspent youth and years away at boarding school and returning to find no friends, but plenty of drinking buddies and almost as many casual fucks.

That part, he doesn’t say in so many words, but Leonard knows how to read people and Jim’s downcast eyes, the patterns he traces in Leonard’s skin with his fingertips, the pauses and the false starts, they tell a story.

He might even be just as lonely as Leonard himself.

Leonard’s half-asleep by the time Jim slips out, with a lingering farewell kiss Leonard barely manages to return.

“See you later, Bones,” he says, too, or maybe Leonard dreams that.

-

Jim’s not injured the next time, either, but he is filthy. He looks like he’s been rolling around in a field, is covered in mud and grass, dirt smeared across his face.

Fortunately for him, Leonard bathes regularly and there is nothing unusual about his request for water, clean and heated. The washer woman has her two sons fill Leonard’s tub while Jim hides upstairs, studiously pretending not to be going through Leonard’s possessions, as though he might find a single thing of any worth or use in the few hoarded shards of Leonard’s past.

It’s a decent sized tub, too, one of Leonard’s indulgences, although Jim still regards him with some combination of doubt and alarm when Leonard strips and climbs in, then beckons for Jim to join him.

He has never shared a bath before, of that Leonard is certain. He can’t get comfortable at first, even leaning back as he is against Leonard’s chest, his head tipped back onto Leonard’s shoulder, his pulse refusing to calm beneath Leonard’s gently questing lips.

Leonard pets him, and caresses him, washes him clean with only a fraction of his mind on the press of his interested cock against the nearly relentless squirm of Jim’s back. He soaps Jim’s hair and then rinses it clean, one cupped hand full of water at a time, can’t resist pressing his lips to Jim’s temptingly exposed throat between each one, feeling the warmth of him, the slowing pound of his heart.

Jim’s not actually as dirty as his clothes, but Leonard massages his arms and shoulders anyway and works the lingering tension from him, cleans the lengths of deft fingers. He lets his palms roam over a taut, defined chest, can only reach as far as lightly furred thighs, but by then Jim is limp and sagging against him, finally relaxed.

Leonard wipes the smudges of dirt from his face one fingertip at a time, and then he curves a hand around Jim’s jaw and urges him into a slow, lazy kiss, just the soft slide of their tongues and the uncoordinated meeting of their mouths.

Jim makes a small sound of objection when Leonard stops, but he’s not clean yet, and his eyes snap open wide then flutter shut, still so damn trusting, when Leonard wraps a hand around his cock and begins to stroke. He’s too comfortable to even push up into it, even though Leonard’s going slowly with the additional friction of being underwater, just gasps and sighs and breathes his encouragement as Leonard both caresses and cleans him. When he comes, it’s with a whimper, his whole body trembling without tension as he allowed the wave to pull him under.

They lay there until the water is cold, Leonard exploring every single detail of the perfect body in his arms, Jim blinking at him sleepily, eventually craning his neck for another kiss and pouting until Leonard bestows it.

Then they can warm each other between the sheets of Leonard’s bed, and Leonard hadn’t thought he would have the chance but he does, to show Jim something new.

“What are you doing?” Jim’s hands find his hair and there’s the first edge of doubt Leonard’s heard in his voice as Leonard crawls down his body, leaving tender kisses on every inch of exposed, clear skin and intending to pursue that further. “Won’t you get sick?”

Jim makes an aggravated sound at Leonard’s arched brow, but his expression remains dubious. “You know better?” he asks, sulkily, and it shouldn’t be as cute as it is, a grown man pouting at the imbalance between their carnal knowledge.

“I really do,” Leonard promises him, with a press of his lips to the inside of Jim’s thigh, so close to where he wants to be, except- “Trust me?”

Jim’s clearly confused to have been asked and even more confused that Leonard waits for a response, just kissing and breathing in the scent of Jim’s skin combined with his soap, maybe too territorial.

Not nearly as territorial as the blooming, purple bruise Leonard leaves on the soft, sensitive inside of Jim’s thigh over the course of a few minutes of biting and lathing and suction that make Jim squirm and arch and whimper.

But when Leonard’s finished, and he drinks in the sight of the gorgeous, flushed and trembling man beneath him, and he just presses a kiss to the underside of Jim’s cock, down at the base, as far as he’ll go if that’ll all he’s permitted, Jim pants, “I trust you.”

Leonard’s heart and groin squeeze hard in unison, and his reverent, “Thank you,” makes Jim laugh breathlessly before every sound from him turns blissful and stunned. Leonard sucks his cock slowly, lovingly, worships the flesh that presses hot and hard against his tongue and slides between his lips, draws off to tease whenever Jim’s breath starts to hitch. He could do this for hours, even though his jaw is aching, even though he hasn’t had the opportunity for such acts in years, Jim’s involuntary noises and pleas, the gentle exploration of trembling fingers through Leonard’s hair all the motivation he needs to keep doing, wishing for those hours more, or days.

He wants to keep Jim, but even in his state, Leonard knows Jim will forever resist being kept. All they have is this moment, and although Leonard tries to tell himself it’s all the more precious for its brevity, he still craves more.

The squeeze of his hands around Jim’s thighs makes him arch and Leonard hadn’t meant to hurt him this time, not really, but it’s the perfect opportunity to relax his jaw, to take Jim in his throat and hear him make a helpless, winded sound like the breath’s been punched from him.

His first time. Leonard savours every moment, every fractional shift that stretches his throat wide, every beat of Jim’s heart translated to within him, the shocked sounds of Jim’s pleasure building up to the broken crack of his voice as he pulses hard, slides deep, his whole body shuddering with the long-delayed force of it. Leonard swallows it all, revels in the taste of him, rich and pure.

He’s beautiful. Leonard’s about to tell him so, but Jim clutches at him, uncoordinated, drags him upwards so their eyes can meet and his are wide and overwhelmed and Leonard recognises it might be too much.

“What does it taste like?” Jim whispers, with a guilty flush across his cheeks. He’s thought about it, then, even if he’s never dared do it.

Leonard smiles at him as he thumbs at Jim’s bottom lip, plush and pink. “Salty. Sometimes sweet. Best kept for when someone’s just bathed.”

“You’re just bathed,” Jim points out with a flicker of his tongue at Leonard’s skin and oh, the idea is tempting. “But I’ve never-“

He stops, not from embarrassment or his own anxiety, but because Leonard has pushed his thumb between his lips and pressed down on his tongue, cutting him off.

He’s quick to catch on, and he’s a hell of a sight, with that mouth wrapped around anything, but-

“Try and keep your teeth clear. Unclench your jaw, that’s it-“ Leonard guides him, inches further in and sees Jim’s brow crease at the first objection of his gag reflex. “Easy. Try and relax your throat, it’s okay if you can’t. We can practice some more,” he promises, when Jim’s eyes light up with what he sees as a challenge and then they darken with all that’s implied.

“Want to try it on something bigger?” Leonard asks with a teasing wink, earns himself a roll of Jim’s eyes and a nod, a swirl of Jim’s tongue as he withdraws. Damn fast learner, Leonard concedes, can’t begrudge him his ability, lays back and allows Jim to work at his own pace.

Nobody’s taught him the value of the build-up, Leonard suspects, although Jim does pause to examine Leonard’s body, to touch and taste the spots that intrigue him. He teases at Leonard’s nipples until they’re hard, aching from the attentions of his tongue and teeth, but he doesn’t seem to revel in causing pain as much as he enjoys receiving it. He watches for Leonard’s reactions with sharp eyes and has an ear for Leonard’s genuine pleasure, too, kisses and licks at the sensitive skin on the insides of his wrists and in the hollow of his hip.

By then Leonard’s cock is dark with blood, aching with the long denial. Leonard knows the worth of the wait, but his hips still twitch when Jim’s tongue teases at his slit, tasting for the first time.

And he can’t take Leonard deep, but he lavishes attention on what he can reach, swirls his tongue deftly and suckles on the head, makes soft sounds of pleasure himself even though he has to be spent.

“You can wrap your hand around the- oh, yes,” Leonard had been watching Jim’s efforts, his pink and pursed lips, the bulge and hollow of his cheeks, the dark flutter of his lashes, but at that his head falls back and it’s all he can do to raise a hand and clumsily pet Jim’s hair in encouragement. “Doing so good, sweetheart.”

Jim grazes with his teeth when he smiles, makes a soft rueful sound when he realises, but it doesn’t so much as take the edge of Leonard’s building arousal. Jim’s unpractised uncertainty shouldn’t heighten the intimacy of the experience but it does, knowing Leonard’s the only one to have had him like this, that he’ll be the only one Jim has ever tasted, the one he’ll think about during every future performance of this act.

It’s all too much, over far too soon, and Leonard barely has time to rasp, “Spit it out, if you want-“ before his pleasure peaks and floods through him and all he knows is the pounding of his heart, the stars exploding in his eyes, the blissful, rhythmic suction of Jim swallowing, even though he’s never done this before, sweet perfect thing.

Jim moans a little at that last accidentally spoken-aloud praise, sucks and laps at Leonard’s cock until it softens and Leonard grumbles, oversensitive despite all the desire in the world to continue, endlessly. When Jim crawls up for a kiss, Leonard drinks in the taste of him, the heady combination of them until Jim collapses, panting at his side, body still pressed close, one arm slung over Leonard’s chest.

They lay there for a while, Leonard only moving when Jim’s restless shifting gets too much, and he realises Jim’s pressing his fingers into the bruise on his thigh to feel it.

Leonard’s going to be exhausted in the morning, but who is he to resist such temptation? He gives Jim three more bites, scattered around the pale insides of his thighs, each one inflicted more slowly and bruising more deeply than the last, and then he hauls Jim into place with a fist clenched in his hair, roughly fingers him open and fucks him until he comes again in sharp, short pangs, keening with the overstimulation.

By the time Jim stumbles out, sex-drunk with dark shadows under his eyes, there is already noise from the bakery down the street.

Leonard collapses amongst sheets that smell of sex and has to be woken by Christine five minutes before his first surgery is due to take place. She really is invaluable, and she makes him coffee, too, like some kind of angel.

-

“My son is sick,” a finely-dressed woman in a gold blouse of all things, says to him, a couple of weeks later.

Leonard doesn’t even mean to seem facetious when he tilts his head, looking behind her for said son, who is notably absent, but she tuts her disapproval anyway before she continues.

“Word is you’re the best doctor in this town. All of the others tell me there’s nothing wrong with him. But he won’t eat, even when we make his favourite foods. He lounges in bed all day, but he looks exhausted. He shows no interest in his usual activities. He just slopes around the place looking for all the world like he couldn’t possibly be suffering more. I’ve had guests. He shows no interest in them, or anything they offer. And I mean anything.”

Leonard snorts. He’s closed for the day and Christine has gone home but this woman has just stormed in through his closed door, so he sees nothing wrong with taking a sip of his whiskey, even though it makes her lips purse.

“There’s nothing wrong with your son,” he says, and she flings up her hands so her blouse flutters expressively, making the gesture seem impossibly dramatic.

“Then what the hell is he-“

“He’s in love.”

She stops, then, her outraged expression set in stone with the force of her shock. Her eyes are wide and distant as she monotones, “That’s not possible.”

Leonard just sips his drink again, lets her work through it. It’s not his place to demand she believes him no matter how sure he is of his diagnosis in the circumstances, not having met her son.

The woman’s somewhat severe-looking, but her features soften as she muses, “He can’t be. He’s rejected every single one of the suitors I’d had call.”

Ugh. Nobles. Leonard tops up his drink, relieved beyond measure than he has to deal with none of that, the arranged marriages and the political machinations that revolve around them.

“He hasn’t been attending any of his private engagements.”

Leonard should get a new shipment of alcohol towards the middle of next week. And he probably needs to place an order for more bandages. There’s supposedly some sort of rigamarole going on up at the castle and they’ve requisitioned all the damn muslin for catering, but the seamstress down the way might have something he can use.

“Why would he not tell me? He knows he has to be married.”

There’s a clean glass in the cupboard. Leonard pours a generous measure of bourbon into it and offers it over, and the woman blinks, takes the glass he’s been drinking from instead. Strange person, to be so suspicious of a doctor, although she knocks the drink back with practiced ease.

“How much for the diagnosis, doctor?”

“What diagnosis? I haven’t seen a damn patient. Your son isn’t even sick.”

“Then I trust you guarantee your silence?”

“About a patient I haven’t seen who’s not sick? Sure.”

The woman eyes him suspiciously for a moment, but she apparently sees something in him that reassures her. She’s of an age with Leonard’s own mother, he realises, although she carries herself with the assurance of a much younger woman. “Thank you for the drink,” she says, too, almost as an afterthought, and she hands the glass back to him and Leonard thinks, oh, to hell with it.

“It won’t be one of the suitors,” he says as the woman prepares to go, and it’s his turn to see something significant change within her, but he can’t quite put his finger on what it is. “It’ll be someone unsuitable. A servant, or something. Impossible love, I should have said. Unrequited, maybe. Or for someone who’s passed.”

She sags visibly at that last but he won’t apologise for something he cannot change.

“This is a small surgery for a man of your talents, doctor.”

Leonard arches a brow. He’s been around long enough to know the offer of a bribe when he hears one, and she has the decency to look a little abashed. “I heal the people. This is where they are.”

“You’re only one man. And they cannot pay.”

Leonard had no response to that, beyond a snort and an open once-over of the woman’s outfit. One of her gold bracelets would sell for enough to pay upkeep on his rooms for a year.

He turns away to pour himself another drink, and when he’s done, she’s gone.

If there’s the clop of hooves and the rattle of a carriage from outside, well, it’s not that unusual for nobles to travel that way.

And if he manages to obtain some muslin from the surplus delivered to the castle, and the herbs he needs for medicine are there too, and there’s a city-wide tax break in honour of the Prince’s many and varied visiting suitors, well.

Leonard pays no attention to politics.

-

In his defence, where he’s from, the Royal family wear blue.

"Well, what did she want?" Christine demands to know, once the rumour mill has delivered to her the finely-ground news that Queen Winona visited him earlier in the week.

"You have to know I can't tell you." Leonard's wiping down his operating table, doesn't so much as pause, tired and in no mood to deal with hysterics caused by a human being of no merit beyond their fortune to be born to parents who owned a big house.

"Is she sick?"

"Christine."

"Is it about the prince?"

"Damnit, Christine! She's a key part of a bloated and flatulent mockery of a system that rewards accidents of birth and leaves children starving in the damn street, but she has the same right to privacy as anyone else. So leave it."

"Are you- going to leave?"

Leonard had been about to snap at her, but she looks so lost and uncertain, and he can't bring himself to dismiss her worries. She had practically nothing before he came along, no hope of ever paying for her education and entering the medical profession like she dreamed. He sets his cloth aside, dries his hands on his tunic and holds his arms out to her, bringing her in for a hug.

"I'm not going anywhere. And if by some miracle I do, I'm taking you with me, damnit."

Christine sniffs, her slim arms wrapped tightly around his waist. If she's surprised by his sudden outburst of affection, she doesn't mention it. "I hope you didn't cuss this much in front of Queen Winona."

Leonard grimaces.

Christine groans, but her trembling soon reveals itself to be laughter, albeit of the teary sort. When Leonard lets her go, she wipes her eyes and gives him a watery smile. "You're a good man, Leonard."

He’s not. But Christine doesn't need that burden. "She was gunna execute me for treason, she would have done it by now, right?"

"Let's hope."

Christine retreats. Patients are supposed to come through the front door, although Leonard doesn't turn them away if they do otherwise. He just prefers to have Christine greet them. She's much better at it than he is.

He goes back to cleaning and she tidies her desk, where she keeps track of her records, and the bell above the door rings but that's not a problem. Leonard has time for another patient except Christine, still emotional after their discussion, shrieks and something shatters.

"Damnit, Christine!"

"Your Highness!" she says in response. Probably not to him.

Leonard groans. Hopefully she’s not here to execute him for treason.

Except the voice that says, “Good evening. Is the doctor in?” is not the one he was expecting. In fact-

“Oh, fuck me.”

“You really didn’t know?” Jim leans in the doorway to ask him, with that familiar rueful little smile on his face, biting his lip, lowering his eyes. His shirt is golden, though, and his clothing altogether more ostentatious than Leonard remembers seeing before. He still wears less jewellery than his mother, Leonard’s glad to-

Wait.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, as his heart does somersaults with warring hope and despair, as he realises it’s not his turn to ask a question. “And- no. No clue.”

“I wondered if maybe you knew and didn’t care.”

“I didn’t know or care.”

That beautiful lilting laugh. Jim looks around like he hasn’t seen the place before, and maybe he hasn’t. It’s always been dark. Somehow he’s even more implausibly gorgeous in the light of day.

“You proved that when you told my mom where to go.”

Dread stabs Leonard right in the chest. “Did she tell you what else I said?” Because Jim’s in love. He’s not interested in suitors; ones Leonard doesn’t doubt are rich and attractive and desirable. He wants someone wholly unsuitable instead. And he’s here. Leonard feels light-headed.

“She made various wild accusations. Something about fucking my valet?” He’s moving closer. There’s no way he misses Leonard’s grimace. Leonard much prefers being the one smiling indulgently while Jim catches up. This is throwing him off-balance.

“She also- said she understands. My dad was- not what you would call suitable. He was a General. A good one, but not- of the right blood. I never met him. All blood’s just as good as the rest when it’s spilled, right?”

Leonard nods, albeit with a slightly sympathetic bent to his expression. “Get out, Christine,” he calls, and Jim’s face to face with him now but he doesn’t even flinch, just smiles.

Thankfully, Christine doesn’t dare refuse in front of her prince. “Yes, Doctor.”

“Are you mad?” Jim asks next.

“That you set your mother on me without any damn warning?”

“That you could have been executed for what we did.”

The ground shifts beneath them, although it doesn’t seem to affect Jim, who reaches out to steady Leonard as his breath leaves him. “What?” he mouths more than asks, mute in his shock.

And slowly, with gentle hands Leonard has felt over almost every inch of his body, Jim takes hold of Leonard’s wrist, lifts it, guides Leonard’s fingers back around his throat. For just an instant, Leonard squeezes instinctively. Jim’s eyes darken.

Fuck, this is goodbye, isn’t it? Leonard lets his hand drop, and Jim’s words wash over him without penetrating the numbness.

“I don’t know how much you know, so I’m just gunna start from the beginning. Growing up, I was the younger prince. The spare. Sent away to boarding school. My mom thought I’d end up as some token diplomat. Until my brother died. Then, suddenly, it was all about my responsibilities. My image. Inheritance. There’s always a lot about inheritance.

“I never wanted any of it. So I rebelled. Got into fights. In bars. With- livestock. Mostly people spotted me pretty quickly. Sent me off back to the castle. To deal with army requisitions and international relations and suitors.

“And then I met you. You didn’t try and send me anywhere. You told me I was an idiot. You hurt me. And you still wanted me, after. You were the only person who ever- wanted to know what I wanted. Asked how I felt. You actually cared.” Jim’s smiling, vivid and real, but then his face falls. “But now you know who I am. You must know that- I can never be free, to just be with you. I can’t keep sneaking out of the castle to meet you. I have to be married by the time I’m twenty-three or the rule of the city passes to my cousin, after my mother. I’ve had countless suitors and the law has always dictated that I would choose a partner of an appropriate bloodline. But I never wanted that, either.

“You made a real impression on my mom, too. Really hit on something. Because you convinced her to do something I’ve never thought-

“I guess that’s the thing about being Queen. You can see the merit in some parts of the tradition that’s been in place for hundreds of years, but with the right motivation, you can alter the guidelines. So- I still need to be married by next month. But- I can ask whoever I want.

“So I’m asking you. Knowing who I am, and what I am. Will you marry me?”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Leonard steadies himself with a hand on the operating table, can’t reach for Jim who is utterly insane, worse than impossible, a prince, on one knee for him, with the softest, sweetest hopeful smile that Leonard has ever seen on his face.

He’s asking for so much. He wants Leonard’s eternity, based on what? Great sex and a feeling? Because Leonard’s had those things too, and he doesn’t know how anyone can trust that’s enough.

Except Leonard contemplates saying no, not just seeing that beautiful face fall and feeling both their hearts shatter under the weight of all that stolen promise, but also living in a city ruled over by Jim and some nameless, faceless noble of a suitor. It’s not just a question of whether he wants to be with Jim.

It’s whether he can dare to trust himself to choose again. Whether he deserves this wonderful, charismatic man who has refused to bow under such unimaginable responsibility, who will be King. Who will care so much he’ll tear himself apart.

There’s only one certainty in Leonard’s mind, but it’s the only one that matters.

Leonard can’t let him do it alone.

“I want to keep my practice. And I’m not going to every single one of those damn Royal engagements.”

“Whatever you want, Bones.”

Leonard looks into eyes shining with devotion and almost feels guilty. Like he’s taking advantage of this vulnerable young man who’s apparently willing to do just about anything for him. But this is all he has, and it’s a part of him. Jim can offer him the world, but all Leonard wants is the fragment of it that he’s managed to carve out all on his own, that he’s earned with his own two hands over the years.

And, he realises as his heart squeezes and begins to pound, and his hands shake for the first time in years- he wants Jim.

“Then my answer is yes.”

“It is?” Jim’s fucking trained to lead armies and manage populations, but in that moment a single word from Leonard is enough to make him crumple. He sags, and he sobs, just once, when he’s gathered up in Leonard’s arms, princely accoutrements and all. “Thank you,” he says, against Leonard’s throat, in a hushed whisper, his lashes damp where they brush Leonard’s skin.

“What the fuck did you call me, just then?” Leonard asks in response.

-

“So. You know what to do?”

“Take a drink every time I feel like telling someone to fuck off?”

“No.”

“Other way around?” Leonard’s only mostly joking. He’s uncomfortable in his quickly tailored outfit, although at least he already had a formal one that could be dressed up with additional buttons, braiding and tassles rather than requiring an entirely new one.

“Still no.” But Jim is smiling, eyes sparkling, as gorgeous as always, and he fusses with the neck of Leonard’s blue tunic even though it’s sitting exactly where it should be, and when Leonard sets his hands on Jim’s waist, he steps a little closer. “It’s a formal dinner. I’ll stay between you and anybody who might want to talk to you. Except my mom. But she likes you.”

Leonard’s not too sure about that. She smiled when she saw him arrive at the castle with Jim but it was more one of triumph than of greeting, and she’s had to arrange an engagement party and dismiss multiple eligible suitors at very short notice since then.

Sure enough, she looks somewhat harangued by the time dinner begins, all of the other guests diplomats from this land and the neighbouring ones, all aggressively distracted by Jim when they make any attempt to speak to Leonard. Seated around an enormous table in a huge dining hall, the visitors change seats between courses, but Leonard stays where he is, no desire to involve himself in these games with jilted suitors any more than entirely necessary.

Jim’s quick, and he’s charming, and he reigns over the table with ease, Winona limited to polite conversation with the elderly guest at her side. Still, though, he notices that Leonard doesn’t need any help selecting the correct cutlery for each course, that he eats without spilling, that he doesn’t stare around with notable shock and awe.

One ambassador makes conversation with Leonard slightly too familiarly from across the table while Jim is distracted and Winona called aside to deal with an issue with the staff. Leonard responds as best he can, schools his expression when he’s asked, “So when you take the prince’s name, will you be Doctor, or Prince?”

Leonard gives her a brief, non-committal answer -he’s still a doctor, damnit, and he earned that title rather than being born into it by some accident- because he imagines his vehemence will not make for civil dinner conversation.

He ends that particular discussion as quickly as possible. Then he leans fractionally towards Jim to get his attention and waits for him to finish his anecdote, for his conversational partner to stop laughing entirely too uproariously.

“You okay?” Jim asks him, and he’s ready to grab Leonard and haul them both out of there in an instant if Leonard even suggests he might want that, it’s clear. He’s so damn sweet.

Leonard leans hard into his side, so they look like any suitably romantic couple unable to keep from touching one another when he asks, low, directly in Jim’s ear, “What’s your name?”

“You don’t know my name?” But Jim’s beaming like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day, his face still so close that’s almost blinding, and his hand is warm on Leonard’s knee beneath the table like he doesn’t care that back in Georgia, nobody was concerned with teaching him the names of such distant, rural royal families.

There is one fact Leonard takes some solace in, though. “You don’t know mine, either.”

“James Tiberius Kirk, nice to meet you.” Jim clasps his hand underneath the table.

Leonard takes a deep breath. “Leonard Horatio McCoy.”

Jim has clearly been paying more attention to his diplomatic education than Leonard ever did. “Like the Georgian Crown- oh, you ass!”

Leonard does feel a little bad that all the pieces slid into place at such an inopportune moment, and now everyone in the room is staring at them in stunned silence after the intensity of Jim’s reaction. “This is a polite dinner function, Prince James,” he says, with a disarming smile, loud enough to be overheard, long-suppressed instincts kicking in.

Jim’s do, too, and he smiles and laughs like he’s just been the victim of a harmless joke, diverting everyone’s attention before he says, low, eyes hard even as his expression stays deceptively friendly. “Could have saved us a lot of time here, Bones,”

“I’m seventh in line for the throne, and I’ve not exactly been keeping up with my familial obligations,” Leonard mutters, self-consciously adjusting his tunic before he meets Jim’s eyes again, realises they haven’t brightened again. “You alright?”

“Do you have-“ Jim cuts himself off, clearly aware of their audience, squeezes Leonard’s hand. “Later.”

No, no. Leonard’s not going to let that uncertainty eat at them both for the rest of this dinner. Miscommunication has always been his downfall. Maybe they don’t have to do the whole thing right now, but he really hadn’t meant to spring this on Jim. It’s been so long since he even cared about his own family heritage. He hadn’t thought it even really mattered, but clearly Jim’s struggling with something, here. Leonard covers his hand with his own, with the illusion of their secluded intimacy maintained, sees Jim’s gaze drop to the tangle of their fingers.

“Are we okay?” Leonard asks, and Jim’s expression does soften, then, genuinely.

“I still love you, if that’s what you mean.”

There’s no hiding the way Leonard’s face goes slack, Jim’s just creasing in slight surprise in response, like Leonard could possibly have suspected that, like he should have known this bright, shining star of a man loves him.

Jim’s voice is gentle and starts out light when he says, “I just gotta be mad at you for a while later, because you really let me think this wasn’t going to happen.”

Oh. Of course. Jim believed they were doomed from the beginning, that Leonard was just another temporary presence in his life that couldn’t possibly be maintained. An impossibility, while he was surrounded by all the theoretically possible options; suitors he hated; responsibilities he’d not been properly prepared for; a mother who only wanted him to fulfil his role.

Leonard owes him an apology, but for now the squeeze of his hand has to be enough, with a few murmured words. “I love you too, you know.”

“We have to go,” Jim announces to the room at large as he stands, nearly hauling Leonard up alongside him with the hold on his hand.

“Sit down,” Winona commands. Her authority resonates through the room almost palpably. Leonard does his best not to cringe, although several other people at the table do.

“I just got engaged!”

“And this is your engagement dinner, so sit down. You will make it through dessert.”

With a tug on Jim’s hand, Leonard urges him back into his seat, promises in hushed tones, “I’ll make it worth the wait.”

“Being a prince is the worst,” Jim responds sulkily before he seems to realise what he’s actually said and the effect it’s had on Leonard’s expression, at once both incredulous and furious. “Not, it’s not, I’m sorry.”

That sentiment, Leonard can approve of. He nods, and they part, to make conversation and eat, as is expected of them.

-

Finally they escape, and Jim has the chance to make his genuinely sincere apologies for what he said, and Leonard makes his own for what he didn’t. Its wrought and emotional for a while, but they’re still in that intense phase of being unable to keep their hands off each other, and Leonard is still desperately in love with the man beneath the rash comments resulting from his spoiled upbringing.

“Can our wedding be a festival? A big feast where the whole city is invited?” Jim asks him, too, later.

It’s a wonderful idea, and Leonard appreciates the merits of it. He appreciates the timing slightly less.

“I’m sorry, am I boring you?” he asks, with a snap of his hips that drives his cock abruptly deeper inside Jim, on his knees as he is, splayed across his enormous bed, makes him shudder and gasp and then groan, pushing back instinctively for more. Leonard pulls out, shoves Jim onto his back, hauls him back towards him with hands around his legs but doesn’t sink back into him, just yet, despite the pitiful whines that earns him.

“I’m thinking about us!” Jim objects, with a crease in his brow, his face flushed and damp with sweat, his hair a mess, his eyes dark, chest heaving.

Damnit, Leonard has never stood a chance against this sweet, selfless man. “I’d like that,” he confesses, warmly, as he lines up, slides in, pushes Jim’s thighs back so he can lean down and kiss him, soft and tender.

“Say it again.”

“You,” Leonard knows exactly what he means, begins between kisses that are already clumsy because they’re both smiling, unable to hold back their overflowing affection for one another, “Are a ridiculous, overly dramatic, ostentatious-“

“I think those both mean the same thing,” Jim pants, although he quickly pipes down when Leonard clenches a fist in his hair, snarls and bites his jaw, all-too happy to leave visible marks on the man who will be his husband before he completes the sentiment.

“-pedantic son of a bitch. And I love you.”


End file.
